I took up the GM reins again (after a four-year absence) because it appeared no one was going to volunteer. A while after submitting the GM form I heard that Don was asking if GMs wanted to have an extra heat on Monday evening. As there is usually a dearth of events I am interested in playing on Monday evening, I bit. So there I was on Monday evening, well prepared (I thought) for an expected 24-40 participants for the first heat. I was surprised when the signup line started growing faster than I could get folks signed in, and stretched out through the entrance of Ballroom B. Eventually, 76 players later, almost as many as the entire field for 2010, we got started! Luckily, the game fits quite comfortably in its two-hour timeslot, and I had enough score sheets printed (at least for the first heat) and cards from a game (Sticheln) that had enough different numbers in four colors to get people seated fairly quickly at 19 boards with plenty of time to play.

Among the games in the first heat, Norman Rule got an all-important win-in-first-heat-played with the highest score in a 4-player game at 117 points, including a Mistress of Ceremonies (M), an Observatory (O), and 45 points from nine unique orange cards. Cliff Ackman barely won his game with 97 points and a 3 ruble to 0 ruble tiebreaker over Thomas Browne (MO) who got 55 points for ten unique orange cards. Joel Lytle won his game with 46 points, the lowest winning score in the first round. After the first heat, all I could tell people about advancing to the semi-final was that, with 19 entrants already who had won in their first heat played, that it was extremely unlikely that any non-winners would advance, and if you didn't win in the first heat you played, you most likely would need two wins to advance.

Before the second heat on Wednesday afternoon I made sure to get 20 more score sheets copied from my master copy by the Lancaster Host staff, and it looked like I was going to need them as 36 players returned joined by 24 new players to make a second heat of 60. From these 15 games, Kathy Stroh, Randy Buehler, Cliff Ackman and Joel Lytle each emerged with their second win, Joel winning with even fewer points (42) than in his first victory, and Kathy winning on a tie breaker (six rubles to two) over Eric Monte. Of the other 11 winners, five were first-heat-played wins, meaning that at this point there were four two-heat winners, 20 first-heat-played winners and six second-heat-played wins. After this heat I was telling those that asked that for a player to advance without multiple wins they would probably need a first-heat-played win plus a good average finishing position for all the heats (heats that a player didn't play in were counted as finishing between second and third, or second-and-a-half).

By Thursday morning, with dozens of other events running opposition, "only" 38 players (ten first-timers and 28 returnees) appeared for the third heat. The ten games played yielded four more players (Mark Globus, Tom McCorry, William Hoch, and Charles Hickock) with a second win, two more a first-heat-played win, and four players (including the GM) a not-first-heat-played win. At this point there were eight double winners, 21 first-heat-played winners, and seven other winners; I started telling folks that they might need two wins to advance.

For the final heat on Thursday the count was down to 32 players for an even eight tables. Joel became the only triple winner, five more players (Marcy Morelli, Pei-Hsin Lin, Norman, Lawrence Solomon, and Eric Brosius) became double winners, Steve Scott got a first-heat-played win, and Peter Staab got a not-first-heat-played win. So after four heats 38 people were "eligible" for 16 spots in the semi-final.

On Friday afternoon 20 of those 38 appeared for the semi-final: triple winner Joel, eleven of the 13 double winners (Randy, Cliff, Tom McCorry, Lawrence, Charles, William, Pei-Hsin, Marcy, Norman, Eric, and Mark), and eight winners. Of the single-heat winners Drew DuBoff, Chad Gormly, Ted Bohaczuk, and Jason Levine all had first-heat-played wins and the best average finishes and got to advance while the GM (and two-time runner-up) could only stand around and watch. In the four semi-final games Charles (MO) beat Joel, Norman (O) and William; Cliff (MO) surpassed Thomas, Chad and Marcy (O); Mark outscored Pei-Hsin, Lawrence, and Ted; while Jason (O) won on a 1 to 0 ruble tie breaker over Randy (M), Drew (MO) and Eric. Randy took fifth place laurels and Lawrence sixth due to the closeness of their respective defeats.

Jason made a good showing during the Final, picking up 41 points and leading at game end over Cliff with 32, Charles with 24 and Mark with 18. Mark and Cliff gained an extra point for having 10 rubles remaining, but as usual, it all came down to unique orange cards. Jason and Cliff gained ten points each for four orange cards, Mark got 21 for six, but Charles gathered seven orange cards for 28 points, giving him a total of 52 and a one-point win over Jason. Cliff was third with 43 and Mark had 40. It was also Charles first WBC championship since 2002.

I will probably not return as GM for this event in 2012. Things I would change for next year are counting a heat no-show as the equivalent of a full loss (to encourage folks to play more heats), and an (even simpler) score sheet. Also, there was a lot of discussion about the power of the (especially first-turn) Mistress of Ceremonies. I would like to hear from people about the possibility of making the game expansion optional for the tournament next year. The problem is that there may not be enough copies of the expansion brought for the number of folks that want to use it. I would like to hear from people on this question and will send the results to whoever takes the GM reins in 2012.